Conventional computer software interacts with the user via its user interface. As computer software became more complex, its ability to display information exceeded the space on the screen that could be used to display it. As a result, the information was displayed as separate elements, and various selection schemes were employed to allow the user to select the element that the user wished to have displayed. When a user used the selection scheme to select an element, the other elements that were mutually exclusively selected using that scheme were partially or fully hidden, and the selected element was displayed.
One such selection scheme in use is a tabbed selection scheme. In a tabbed selection scheme, each element of several mutually-exclusively displayed elements is displayed with a tab, which can look like the tab on a paper file folder or paper organizer booklet. Each tab may be labeled with an indication of the element that tab represents. The tab corresponding to the currently selected element is displayed in a manner that makes it appear as though it is in front of the other tabs and is connected to the remainder of the element it represents, and that element is also displayed. Some or all of the other tabs are also displayed to allow the user to see the other choices that the user can make.
There are many benefits to employing a tabbed user interface. The user can determine which element is being displayed by looking for the frontmost tab. A tabbed user interface is familiar to users because of its similarity to real-world applications, such as file folders and organizers. Furthermore, tabbed user interfaces are familiar to many users of computer programs, who readily understand that the tabs may be used to select from among various elements represented by the tabs and their labels.
However, as the amount of information displayed on a screen continues to grow, the tabbed approach is sub optimal for several reasons. First, the other tabs corresponding to elements available, but not selected can provide a cluttered appearance on the screen. The lines and curves that define the edges of the tabs adds a significant amount of visual information that contributes to the clutter on the screen. The tabs may be displayed using different colors, and this jumble of colors makes the overall appearance look more disjoint. Additionally, the many lines and other visual information used to display multiple tabs slows the user attempting to scan the labels or other information on the tabs.
Second, in an attempt to cram more and more tabs onto a display screen, some software developers employ two or more rows of tabs. Not only does this occupy more space on the screen, reducing the available space to be used to display the selected element, it also makes for a more confusing user interface, because the layout of the tabs on the screen changes according to which tab is selected. For example, when a user selects a tab on the second row of tabs, to allow the selected tab to appear to be connected to the element displayed, that tab is moved to the row nearest the element. Some software using multiple rows of tabs causes the entire second row to also be moved down, in a misguided attempt at keeping the relative positions of the tabs on a row in the same order. Although in this approach, the relative positions of the tabs on a given row remain the same, the user loses track of the exact position of all of the tabs. Other software moves only the selected tab to the row nearest the element, and the formerly selected tab is moved into another row to take the position of the tab being moved, either at the same relative position or a different position of the selected tab. This approach makes little intuitive sense to the user and makes it difficult to find the formerly selected tab. Still other software rearranges the tabs in other ways when a tab in the second row is selected, making it difficult for the user to find another tab using the knowledge of their former locations.
Because any solution to the above problem will appear differently than the familiar tabbed user interface, it can be helpful to display controls to the user in a manner that makes clear to the user that a certain portion of the screen can be used to control the display of information on the screen. In contrast, in the conventional Visual Development Studio commercially available from Microsoft Corporation, certain elements that could be displayed using tabs are instead displayed using text. However, the text always looks like text, and so it is difficult for the user to identify that the non-tabbed text may be used like a conventional tab.
What is needed is a system and method that retains at least some of the readily understood appearance of a tabbed user interface so that users will instantly know how to use it, without employing the aspects that provide the cluttered appearance on the screen or the confusing rearrangement of the location of user interface controls used to select an element from among those listed, and yet makes it clear to the user that the user interface can be used to alter the display of information.